Ponton or pontoon styling is an automotive design genre that spanned roughly from the 1930s-1960s, when pontoon-like bodywork enclosed the full width and uninterrupted length of a car body — eliminating previously distinct running boards and articulated fenders. The integrated fenders of an automobile with ponton styling may also be called Pontoon fenders, and the overall trend may also be known as envelope styling. Now largely archaic, the term Ponton describes the markedly bulbous, slab-sided configuration of postwar European cars, including those of Mercedes-Benz, Opel, Auto Union, DKW, Borgward, Lancia, Fiat, Rover, Renault, and Volvo—as well as similar designs from North America and Japan, sometimes — in its most exaggerated usage — called the "bathtub" look in the U.S. The term derives from the French and German word ponton, meaning 'pontoon'. The Langenscheidt German–English dictionary defines Pontonkarrosserie as "all-enveloping bodywork, straight-through side styling, slab-sided styling." Origin of the trend In 1921, Hungarian aerodynamicist Paul Jaray requested a patent for a streamlined car with an evenly shaped lower body, that covers the wheels and runs parallel to the floor space. A year later he presented his first running prototype with such a body, the "Ley T6", and in 1923 Auto Union presented a streamliner concept car, designed by Jaray. Another of the first known cars with a ponton body is the Bugatti Type 32 "Tank" which participated in the 1923 French Grand Prix at Tours. In 1922 the Romanian engineer Aurel Persu filed a patent application for an “aerodynamically-shaped automobile with the wheels mounted inside the aerodynamic body” having a drag coefficient of only 0.22 and received it in Germany in 1924. Named the Persu Streamliner the car was built in Germany by Persu, with the help of several local companies. During his research Persu established that the most adequate aerodynamic shape was that of a water droplet falling to the ground. In 1924, Fidelis Böhler designed one of the first production cars with a ponton body, the Hanomag 2/10. The car's body resembled a loaf of bread earning it the sobriquet of "Kommissbrot"—a coarse whole grain bread as issued by the army. The economical car was produced from 1924 to 1928. Böhler built the core body around two side-by-side passenger seats. He dispensed with running boards and integrated the fenders in the body to save on weight." The inexpensive car became popular with consumers in Germany. In 1935, Vittorio Jano,